


Heaven

by Synchron



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Angst and Feels, Bittersweet, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Introspection, accepting death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23630395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synchron/pseuds/Synchron
Summary: Vergil wasn't the first person that Yamato split into two halves of one whole.But for Credo, who has no human body to return to, there is only one way it can end.
Relationships: Credo (Devil May Cry)/Reader
Comments: 14
Kudos: 34





	Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> So due to a flurry of Credo asks in my inbox on tumblr this morning, I felt incredibly inspired to write something soft and fluffy for my mans!!!!!
> 
> ...and then for some reason, I turned to an old angsty piece instead. 😬 The original idea behind this was pitched by Fury, and it was with their blessing that I turned it into a full one shot. You may also recognise the famous poem I set this fic to - I just felt it was a really fitting piece of literature and so threw it in to up the feelings. I don't really have anything to say beyond this other than I am now in pain and am in dire need of some _actual_ Credo fluff. This genuinely hurt me to write. 😭😭

Surprisingly, death didn't hurt.

Credo remembers cold steel piercing his flesh, remembers an immense pressure in his gut as organs ruptured, seeping through the crevice between blade and flesh to stain the white of his uniform with blood, bile and something else that's black as night. He remembers the chilling look his long time mentor gave him as he slipped away into darkness, menacing and cold… But there's no pain. Just the pride of a Knight, fighting for what he believed in to the bitter end, gripping the thin blade of the Yamato tight enough that he feels the steel scrape against the bones of his hand.

 _But there's no pain_.

Something pulls at him, an incessant tugging that gets harder and harder to resist. His soul ascending to Heaven, perhaps? Funny, that. Every text he'd read, every sermon he'd attended had told him Heaven was warm and inviting. Gentle, like the caress of a spring breeze. Credo never imagined it would instead be such a violent affair; his soul literally being torn from his frail, limp human body. Forceful and somehow frightening. Ominous.

He tries to fight this too.

He fails.

But it still doesn't hurt.

When Credo comes to, it's to a world that slowly returns to him one sense at a time. He hears the roar of the ocean at first, the sound of indistinct and muffled waves crashing into the rocky coast of the island that is his home. It prompts him to open his eyes next, revealing to him the vast sky above, marred by tendrils of inky smoke that curl into the air, leaving trails of an ugly, artificial scar across the sky as the wind carries it out over the ocean. And when he turns his head to follow the wisps of smoke to their source, he sees the Order's Headquarters reduced to nothing but burning rubble.

His sense of touch returns to him next in the form of a pang of guilt in his chest. A burning shame that forces the air from his lungs, and he hunches over in a body that feels far too big and much too heavy. Clawed hands reach up to his head as if to physically curb the pounding headache that throbs in his ears—

Wait.

Clawed?

He looks down at himself and finds the ghastly, marred form of what he'd deemed as his superior self. His feathers are ruffled, twisted, stained with a deep maroon. Almost purple. His own blood.

It frightens him for some reason, and though there is no escaping it, he scuttles backwards on his hands anyway as if to flee from himself. Why has he taken this form? Why can he not disengage it? _What is happening? Why?_

When he nudges into something behind him, something soft, Credo stops to peer over his shoulder, only to find his own body lying on the pavement. There is a gaping hole in his abdomen to match the one in his Angelo form that is still slowly leaking that dark maroon liquid, and his skin, his human skin, is pallid and cold. It isn't a body, so much as a corpse. _His_ corpse.

A shaking hand rises to his mouth to stifle a wretch, panicked thoughts racing through his mind. He doesn't sweat in this beastly form, but the breeze feels shockingly cold all the same. Why is his human body lying there on the floor? Is this… the power of the Yamato? The power that cleaves and separates man from demon? Who would ever have thought that its strength could be interpreted so literally too? To such minuscule precision.

An explosion in the distance diverts his attention from the chilling sight before him; Credo can see the looming marble statue of what was once his Saviour hovering far in the distance, wreaking havoc. Inviting chaos. Taking lives.

He staggers to his feet and picks up his sword, his precious Durandal, and spreading wide his lone wing, he takes to the air, sparing not one more glance at the humanity he's leaving behind.

He will think about that later. For the moment, he still has a duty to uphold.

When all the fires are put out, and the screaming of Fortuna's citizens finally stop… when that _'later'_ finally comes, Credo realises all he was doing was running away from an awful truth: he no longer has a human body to return to. Not in any sense of the word.

He will never be human again.  
  


* * *

_  
Do not stand at my grave and weep;_

_I am not there. I do not sleep.  
  
  
_

Ever since he was a child, Credo was enamoured with fairytales. Stories of extravagance, tales of grandeur, the happily ever after most of all… But as he watches his own funeral procession from a distance with eyes and ears far too keen, as he watches Kyrie sob into her hands, and he sees _you_ failing to blink back tears, crumbling into despair when Nero's voice finally cracks, he has to physically stop himself from swooping in to dispel the grief. Clawed hands grip at the tree he stands behind, cracking and puncturing the rough bark. This too, he forcefully brings to a stop. No matter how he tosses and turns it over and over and over in his head, it just isn't a realistic prospect. There would be no smiles and relieved laughter, no tears borne of happiness as his most loved ones gather around him. Hold him. Playfully scold him. Ask him where he's been. There would only be accusing questions of why he never told them the truth. Scorn for his betrayal of the alleged love he had for his city. There's no hope for him like this, a creature of feathers and claws and eyes of a blood red. Though once a Knight of limitless pride, a beacon of everything that was _right_ , he is now nothing but a monster in the eyes of Fortuna - no better than the horde that swept over the city. What the few people present mourn for is the man he once was, not the demon he's become. Not the demon he now _is_.

Fairytales aren't real, and there is no happily ever after to be had. What a fool he was to think otherwise.

Not everybody stays to the end of the procession. One by one, people leave before the due time. Credo himself is one of them.  
  


* * *

_  
I am a thousand winds that blow._

_I am the diamond glints on snow.  
  
  
_

But it isn't all bad. The solitude is tranquil in its own way - he found a cave in a cliff face, pointed toward the ocean he loves so much. There isn't much he can do to make it homey, but it isn't as though he spends more than a few hours there at a time whenever he needs a moment to rest. He's otherwise always out and about, exploring the parts of Fortuna he was never able to as a human. He doesn't need to eat in this form, taking in sustenance from the very air; the latent miasma that seeps from the hellgate below the city. And thus he doesn't even really need to sleep either - he has so much time to roam and wander and ride the warm thermal breezes that waft over his island home.

But he never once forgot his honour. Though Nero tore the shield of his left arm from him, stripped him of his unwavering faith, he could _never_ forget.

Fortuna is where he grew up. Fortuna is where he met you. And it is _that_ Fortuna that he swore he would protect. So even like this, he still does, hunting demons that squeeze through the hellgates like vermin. Protecting its citizens from their ilk, diving in like a hurricane and taking only the wicked, only the cursed, only the demons, and leaving nothing but a flock of feathers, fluttering slowly through the air and catching the sunlight. Diamonds on snow.

It took some weeks for rumours to spread, but being such a small city now, with an even smaller population, word travels fast: Fortuna now has a guardian angel. It fills him with pride when he hears whispers of exactly that on the wind from grateful residents.

"Praise be to Fortuna's Guardian Angel!" They cry.

"A true Saviour to us in these difficult times!"

"Blessed is he!"

"He flies on wings and winds of justice!"

It eases his guilt. Takes his mind off the looming abyss that is his future. Not because he doesn't know what will happen, but because it is completely empty. He can't do this forever. But he doesn't know what else he _can_ do.

And so he hunts.

And hunts.

And hunts.  
  


* * *

_I am the sunlight on ripened grain._

_I am the gentle autumn rain.  
  
  
_

But sometimes, when curiosity gets the better of him. He stops by his old home where Nero and Kyrie now live on their own. It's far too large for just the two of them, and so, at least as far as Credo is able to surmise, they have converted their home into an orphanage, sheltering the children who no longer have homes or parents of their own.

Credo has never been prouder of them, and he surprises even himself when he feels his face, stiff from weeks (or is it months?) of disuse, stretch and pull into an expression of contentment. The smile that cracks his stony visage is genuine and longing. But oh so proud. They are doing as well as can be, and that too, puts him at ease.

A skitter, a scampering of lightly padded feet, pulls his attention from Kyrie rolling out dough on the kitchen countertop, and towards a troupe of Assaults that are bounding from roof to roof. Even at this great distance, Credo can hear Nero's voice, somehow perfectly clearly, telling her and the kids to stay inside. That he's got this.

It's a risky move, but Credo ends up thinking the same thing. He opens his wing to a southern wind and a gentle pouring of rain, and lunges into the air with Durandal in his hand. By the time Credo is close enough, Nero has dispatched most of the demons on his own, save for one more that is mounting an ambush. Tucking his wing back, he dives, feeling that rush of vertigo from the sudden descent. The golden primary feathers of his wing spreads, splits and then tugs free, turning into golden blades. They charge ahead of Credo, even in a full dive, and though the Assault, sensing their arrival, dodges each and every one, whizzing harmlessly by and embedding themselves into roof tiles and concrete, there is nowhere for it to run by the time Credo descends upon it with a tranquil fury. Nero turns, squinting in the sunlight at a familiar silhouette when Credo rises to his full height. The Assault dangles limply from the end of Durandal, impaled straight through its torso. With an effortless flick, the corpse is flung from the blade, a black arc of blood following its path through the air until it hits the building on the opposite street and tumbles to the ground below it.

A sound of surprise is torn from Nero's throat, but before he can utter anything else, Credo leaps from the rooftop and circles back into the sky, leaving Nero to blink into the sky, blinded by harsh sunlight and the rain that pelts at his face.

Leaving him to question what it was he really saw.  
  


* * *

_  
When you awaken in the morning's hush,_

_I am the swift uplifting rush  
  
  
_

When the days that pass are slow, when there are no demons for him to hunt, he finds that he gets the most comfort in watching you go about your daily life, from morning's hush, to night's peace. Still at a distance, of course. Always at a distance. But your home is as he remembers it; small and modest, but always cozy, warm, and so full of life. You are just as he remembers too. Elegant and beautiful. Gracefully ethereal. He watches from high above as you tend to the tree you'd once planted with him at your side. It was nothing but a sapling back then, and you'd joked, in a voice as gentle and uplifting as a thermal breeze under his wings, that your children - yours and his, you made sure to clarify - would get to sit beneath it one day. All together as a family. He'd then replied that trees take decades to reach full maturity, and that by the time the tree would be large enough to provide ample shade, your children would be far too old to indulge you in such a mundane activity. You laughed that off at the time, and he wondered if you heard the lonely bitterness in his tone then.

What else could he have said?

How could he tell you that his Ascension had left him infertile?

Not that it mattered much in the end. Being a port city, Fortuna sees rough weather as much as it sees comfortably humid, balmy afternoons - a storm had knocked the supports of the sapling right over, and subsequent storms always tore branches and stripped its foliage. It would never grow tall and strong, permanently angled to one side. From the beginning, it never stood a chance - a metaphor that was just too cruel to be thrust upon you.

And yet he still sees you tending to it, always with a wistful, sad look on your face as you trim at unruly leaves and snapped branches. It's still a tiny little thing, barely tall enough to cover you with its shade. But you're so proud of it for coming this far.

"He would be proud of you too." Credo hears you say.

The pain that he feels in his chest at that is tangible, gripping at what he thinks is his heart and squeezing hard enough that he doubles over.

The pain dulls after a few moments, but it never truly fades.  
  


* * *

_  
Of quiet birds in circled flight._

_I am the soft stars that shine at night.  
  
  
_

He's beginning to weaken. He doesn't understand why. Or how. He doesn't feel hunger in this form. Never feels lethargy as he used to. But there is something that weighs him down and makes him sluggish. Something that drains the saturated colour of his armoured plating and taints his feathers with a tired, dull grey.

The ones that are still on him at any rate.

He leaves a trail of downy feathers wherever he goes now, fluttering from his body faster than he can possibly grow them back. And eventually, even swinging his sword becomes too much of a chore. Credo is no fool. He knows what this means. Can feel it coming with every breath he takes that grows shorter on each successive one.

A man is only alive while he is whole. And though he still lives on as a demon, as a poor mimic of an angel, he is only half a man. With every day that passes, he lives on the borrowed time of the humanity he left lying on the floor all those months ago.

Credo knows that Death always collects.

And strangely, even though he's experienced it before already, it frightens him _now_ more than ever - a gaping maw of darkness that he can physically see encroaching upon the edges of his vision. It pulls at him with gnarly, twitchy little fingers. Cold. Overwhelming. Consuming. He croaks something out that might be a cry of pain or fear, and, foolishly, so naively, thinks he has it in him to outrun Death. Credo staggers to the cave mouth and spreads his shaky wing. It hasn't seen any use in days, figuring that all he needed to recover his strength was a few days of undisturbed rest, but he knows better now. He molts another score of darkened feathers and clumsily takes to the sparkling night sky with Death right behind him. Not wanting to stare into a stone cold void, not wanting to feel that violent pulling and tugging on his very soul ever again, he doesn't dare look back.

The wind under his wing is normally welcoming, but tonight, it fights him every step of the way, threatening to crumble with each weary flutter. He doesn't have any real direction other than forward. Other than _away_ from what is chasing him. But he's slowing, weakening, breaths growing haggard. He's still far too high up in the clear night sky when his wing collapses from the weight of gravity itself, tumbling to the ground in another burst of loose feathers. He skids to a stop in loosened dirt, further staining the once untainted white of his feathers… that flawless and immaculate snow white pride. Durandal clatters somewhere in the distance, knocked from his hand at the impact, but he couldn't care less for where it lies. What good is a sword to him now? Death has no form to fight. But he tries to rise onto his legs anyway, propping himself up onto trembling arms that give out under his own weight, and like a struggling beast in the final throes of death, he thrashes until his limbs fall to the ground. Motionless. Heavy.

He closes his eyes and waits for Death to come.

But it doesn't. Not just yet.

It grants him one final reprieve, letting a gentle fragrance drift lightly into rejuvenated senses. It's floral, it's woody, it reminds him of you. That's when he realises he crash landed right into your garden, crushing a myriad of flowers and vegetables under a long trail of upturned dirt. Ah.. what will you say when you find this mess in the morning? He should probably leave. But his body just won't obey him anymore, the synapses falling just short of willing his muscles into moving, burning out in little twitches of his fingers in the dirt.

 _One day we'll sit under it together_ , he suddenly hears your voice echo in his mind. Resonant and so distinct in its sound despite the foggy nature of every other one of his senses. _As a family..._

Credo jolts and his eyes scan the expanse of your garden, looking for… looking for that symbol of everything he wanted to protect in you; your ambitions, your love...

With a silent grimace marring his expression, Credo rolls onto his stomach and cranes his head toward his goal: not your warm home, but that poor, lopsided little oak tree. Bit by bit, one clawful of dirt at a time, Credo drags his heavy body limb by limb through your garden until he reaches the base of it. Were he standing, he'd tower so far over it that there couldn't possibly be enough room for him to squeeze under its modest branches. But when you're crawling through dirt and looking at it from below, it seems so vast; there's ample room for him to roll himself over and sag his back against its trunk. Exhausted and breathless, he lets his head fall against brittle bark and closes his eyes. The smell of your garden, of _nature_ , brings him back to simpler times, where he'd spend evenings toiling the soil with you, bathed in the deep orange of sunset. It helps distract him from the numbness that's slowly taking hold of his body.

Death is near now, bringing with it Heaven's chilling embrace.

"Credo?"

Your voice is fuzzy and indistinct, but he _does_ make it out. His body twitches once, perhaps intending to flee now that he's been seen by another person, by _you_ , but all that really occurs is a feeble, weary flop of his wing, and a forward lurch of his shoulders before he settles back against the tree, too weak, too tired to do anything else. With his vision blurring, he laments that he can't see you, standing there in the distance, but he knows it's you by your smell, and judging by the way that glowing orb at your side - a lantern - cautiously bobs closer to him, he knows you aren't afraid. Of course you'd have come outside to investigate the tumult taking place in your garden… he wouldn't have expected any less of you.

"I knew it." There's a telltale quiver in your voice. You're on the verge of tears, and the closer you get, the sharper your form becomes in his hazy vision. Soon, with a rustle of grass and a crunch of soil underfoot, your face becomes as clear as day, illuminated by the moon high above. You _are_ crying, and at that, his eyes drop to the ground between his legs. "I knew it was you who was watching over Fortuna. I knew you never died that day." The lantern drops to the floor somewhere to the side, the flame inside flickering once, and then burning out. You kneel between his legs, cradle his face in your hands and guide it back up to meet your eyes, still brimming with tears. "Why weren't you there for Kyrie? Why didn't you come to see me?

"Why did you wait this long to come back to me?"

His lips, dry as they are, part, though no sound comes from them - he is as silent as his grave. But he _did_ , he tries to convey. He _did_ come to see you. Almost everyday. But he is so, so tired now. Even cradled so gently in your hands, his head wants to droop and lull forward, and it is only by concession of his pride as a Holy Knight that he keeps his head up. Credo's vision blurs again, but not because he's growing ever weary, but because there's something wet collecting in the corner of his eyes now too. Your thumbs swipe at them, and once more, your face is all that he can see, with that transient, raw beauty that comes with tears so openly wept. Your hands skim over his face, brush the dirt from his plumage, though much more than mere soil falls through your fingers; your damp hands sweep away feathers in equal measure. That just makes more tears fall from your eyes in silent understanding of what that means. He knows you can see it in the dimming glow of his eyes, crackling with a fading light.

" _Answer me—!_ "

He doesn't. He spares you the undignified croak that will come if he tries. And so in its stead, Credo lifts a frail hand, the one he'd always used to hold Durandal, and with it, he grazes the contour of your face with the back of his fingers. There's no sensation in his hand when he does so, but he remembers with an overwhelming clarity the softness of your skin, and that much alone is worth the exerted strength. All the more when you softly lean into his hand, just like you always used to.

He can't _feel_ how warm you are against him, but he _does_ feel a pressure against his collar when you drop your face into that junction between the base of his throat and his shoulder. You used to nestle there all the time and murmur all manner of things to him. Some appropriate. Most not. You used to whisper his name into that stretch of skin too, over and over and over; a love that was so _pure_ that it burned him from the inside out. But tonight, you only weep.

"It isn't time yet, Credo. It's still too early for us to be sitting out here—"

He can't answer you anymore, but he _does_ press the side of his face against your temple. Maybe it is too early, but with the very last of his strength, with trembling, quivering movements, he shuffles in the dirt, pulling you into his lap and an embrace that's so painfully familiar he feels your entire body begin to quake with quiet sobs. His wing stretches out to the side in jerky motions before it curls around to cover you, shielding you from the brisk night air and blanketing you in warmth, and filling him with its phantom sensation.

His breathing gradually evens out, a slow tide that ebbs and flows as softly as the waves that lazily lap the shore. And there, tucked so safe and so comfortable in his arms, you spend your final night with the only man you will ever love, sheltered beneath a promise that was never meant to be. With your ear pressed to his solid chest, and bearing a hollow ache in your own, you listen to his heart beat slow and slow and slow over the course of the night as the midnight breeze gently rustles at young leaves. When the sun begins to peek over the horizon, urging the darkness, the stillness of night back, hiding the stars with its brilliance, that quiet, passive heart beat finally stops.

Surprisingly, death doesn't hurt, and Credo's final thought before he finally falls asleep is that all those texts and sermons were right after all.

Heaven is indeed gentle.

He doesn't know why he was so afraid.  
  


* * *

  
By the time the sun had fully risen into its throne in the sky, Credo's body had dissipated into a stream of golden light, catching on the wind and circling upwards to his final resting place. There was nothing left of it, nothing left of _him_ except for Durandal lying in a bed of dahlias.

It stands now, underneath that lopsided oak, blade sunk deep into tightly packed dirt. You look out over your garden at it every week and smile sadly.

But this week, a hand flies to your mouth, muffling a string of pained sobs as you cry fresh tears.

A dove, small and pure white has settled upon the guard of Durandal. It peers around your garden, hopping from one side of the sword to the other, taking in its surroundings almost as if in remembrance. It then cocks its head at you, in that curious little way that birds do, watches you for a few more seconds, and then, flapping its wings, sheds a flurry of pristine white feathers before it takes to the air again and disappears into the sky.

  
  


_Do not stand at my grave and cry;_

_I am not there. I did not die._

**Author's Note:**

> White doves mean a lot of things; eternal love (as doves mate for life), peace, tranquillity, inner peace, hope, peace in the next life, redemption... honestly a whole boat load of things. And they all sort of apply in one way or another.
> 
> And I did HC a while back that dahlias are Credo's favourite flower. 😌✊
> 
> Now if you'll excuse me, I am actually going to go lie down on the floor and cry at the suffering I made my mans go through slkfdh


End file.
